Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls

I had been eyeing this recipe for sweet buns on allrecipes.com for a while now. It had great reviews and I am always looking for new bread recipes to try. Plus it seemed easy to put together. And with such great reviews I was sure I will not be disappointed. And I was right, after about two hours of kneading, resting and baking, I had light and fluffy (and absolutely delicious) dinner rolls. I also got an absolutely drool worthy cinnamon swirl bread. And with my love for all things cinnamon I honestly cherished the cinnamon swirl bread more than the rolls. And that actually says a lot about the bread since the rolls were amazing without any additions!

The recipe makes 16 dinner rolls. I used half the dough to make 8 dinner rolls and the other half I used to make the cinnamon swirl bread. I do not have a recipe, but I followed the same instructions I do when I make cinnamon rolls. Rolled out the dough to a rectangle (keeping it 9 inch long, and as wide as I could with a thickness of about 1/4th inch) and spread softened butter on the rolled out dough, followed by a generous sprinkle of cinnamon sugar on top. I rolled the dough up and let it rise in my bread pan. To achieve the shape I have in the pictures, I cut the rolled up dough like you do for cinnamon rolls (but slightly thinner in thickness) and put each cut part side by side in the bread pan. I wish I had pictures because I feel I might not be explaining this too well. If that’s the case, sorry!

I also did make a few minor changes to the actual recipe.

One, I substituted some of the all purpose flour with whole wheat flour. I also did not add 1/3 cup sugar as called for in the recipe. I did not miss the sugar, but feel free to add the whole 1/3 cup if you are looking for sweet dinner rolls.

I added a bit of wheat germ also, to make it healthier.

Also, I don’t own a bread maker, instead I used my Cuisinart Stand Mixer to mix the dough and it worked fine. I am sure you can use your own muscles power to knead the dough as well, and while I love kneading dough (it does make me feel like I am getting a workout), a little help in the form of the mixer is always welcome in my kitchen.

Place water, milk, egg, ⅓ cup butter, sugar, salt, flour and yeast in the pan of the bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Combine water, sugar and yeast, let stand 10 minutes to proof the yeast. Add in the milk, melted butter, flours, wheat germ, salt, egg and knead for 7 minutes in your stand mixer attached with a dough hook.

Once the dough is smooth, cover with a warm damp cloth and let rise for about 1 hour (or until it doubles in size).

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Make 16 rolls from the dough. Brush each roll generously with the belted butter. Cover with clean kitchen towel and put in a warm place, let rise 1 hour.